Pierre-Stanislas Bédard (September 13, 1762 – April 26, 1829) was a lawyer, judge, journalist and political figure in
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada () was a British colonization of the Americas, British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion o ...
.
He was born in
Charlesbourg in 1762, descended from
French ancestors who had first arrived in
New France
New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...
before 1660. He studied at the
Petit Séminaire de Québec, articled in law and was called to the bar in 1790. In 1792, he was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada
The Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada was the lower house of the bicameral structure of provincial government in Lower Canada until 1838. The legislative assembly was created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The lower house consisted of e ...
for Northumberland; he was reelected in 1796, 1800 and 1804. In 1796, he married Luce, the daughter of a surgeon,
François Lajus. Bédard became leader of the
parti canadien. He was one of the founders of the newspaper ''
Le Canadien'', which presented the party's views in print, in 1806. In 1808, he was elected in the Lower Town of Quebec and was reelected in 1809.
Bédard saw the legislative assembly as the only government body that represented the people of Lower Canada and so he resented the unchecked power wielded by the appointed councils and government ministers; he felt that ministers should be held accountable to the assembly. He also believed that judges should be kept independent from politics and so should not be allowed to sit in the legislative assembly. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1810 on the orders of Governor
James Henry Craig for treasonable activities because of his association with ''Le Canadien''; he was released in March the following year. Bédard represented Surrey in the legislative assembly from 1810 to 1812, when he was named a judge in the Court of King's Bench for Trois-Rivières district. In 1811,
James Stuart replaced Bédard as leader of the Parti canadien. During the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...
, Bédard served as a captain in the militia. He opposed the union of
Upper and Lower Canada and led the opposition to the union in the Trois-Rivières region.
He died in
Trois-Rivières
Trois-Rivières (, ; ) is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice River, Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence River, Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Sain ...
in 1829.
His son
Elzéar was a member in the legislative assembly, a judge and a mayor of Quebec City. His son
Joseph-Isidore also served in the assembly. His brother
Joseph
Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...
was a member of the legislative assembly.
Notes
References
*
*
*
Janet Ajzenstat. "Canada's First Constitution: Pierre Bedard on Tolerance and Dissent ", in ''Canadian Journal of Political Science'', Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1990), pp. 39–57
*
Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne.
The Art of Reasoning, CBC Ideas* Luigi Logrippo, « Pierre-Stanislas Bédard : a precursor of symbolic logic », https://www.site.uottawa.ca/~luigi/papers/Bedard.htm
In French
* François Bellemare.
Bédard, Pierre-Stanislas, in the Web sit
''Les Patriotes de 1837@1838'' May 20, 2000
*
Arthur Maheux, "Pierre Stanislas Bédard, 1763–1829 : philosophe et savant", in Mémoires de la Société Royale du Canada, 3e sér., 50 (1956)
*
Francis-Joseph Audet. ''L'Honorable Pierre-Stanislas Bédard'', Ottawa : Société Royale du Canada, 1926
* Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne
''Pierre Bédard et ses fils'' Québec, Laflamme et Proulx, 1909
* Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne
''Pierre Bédard et son temps'' Ottawa, Société royale du Canada, 1898
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bedard, Pierre-Stanislas
1762 births
1829 deaths
Members of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada
Judges in Quebec
Politicians from Quebec City
Lower Canada judges
Petit Séminaire de Québec alumni